Episode 1: Mysterious Girlfriend
Mysterious Girlfriend (謎の彼女 Nazo no Kanojo) is Episode 1 of Mysterious Girlfriend X. ( Manga cross-reference---Manga Chapter 0, " Oneshot " ) Summary Akira Tsubaki has a very unusual dream one night. The next morning, at school, he is introduced to a mysterious new female transfer student, Mikoto Urabe. Days later, he finds her at her desk, drooling, one evening after school, and after she leaves, decides to taste her drool, left in a puddle on her desk. He collapses several days later with a fever that won't get better. Urabe comes to his room, and offers him another dose of her drool, which causes him to immediately recover. The next day after school, Urabe offers to walk home with him, and once again feeds him her drool. This begins a odd routine of meeting, walking, and engaging in a daily 'drool routine', that will bond them together as boyfriend and girlfriend in a relationship that has many very unusual consequences. Plot The episode starts with Tsubaki dreaming about how adolescent boys put in a lot of thought about sex, and who their first female sex partner may be. He's awakened by his alarm clock, and a vague memory of a flower overflowing with necture, an action he shortly replicates by pouring too much honey on his toast. When he arrives at The Kazamidia Municipal High School, a new female transfer student joins the class, Mikoto Urabe. Urabe is quickly labelled as a weirdo due to her abrupt nature, odd sleeping patterns, refusing to eat or socialize with the other girls, and a strange outburst of 'personal laughter' during class. One day, Tsubaki wakes Urabe at the end of school day, when he returns to the classroom to retrieve his lunchbox. For the first time, her bangs part to reveal her full face, which he finds cute and very enchanting, even though she's drooling a little. After she leaves, he ends up dipping his finger into the drool puddle on her desk and samples it without thinking, it tastes very sweet. He almost immediately wonders what he has done and runs out of the classroom. That night, he has a vivid dream about a mysterious girl that he can't seem to get out of his head. He was being lead by that girl, by the hand as they are running on an elevated walkway between two tall buildings, and then dancing with her on a hotel roof in a strange city scape. Several days later Tsubaki suddenly comes down with a fever while in gym class, and is laid up in bed for what the doctor diagnoses as a common cold. Hearing about Tsubaki's condition, Urabe goes to his house under the pretense of giving him homework handouts. The real reason is that she suspects he tasted her drool when he woke her up two days prior. Tsubaki admits to doing it once she tells him she won't laugh at him or make fun on him. Urabe puts her finger in her mouth to coat it with saliva, and gets Tsubaki to suck her finger. This immediately dissipates Tsubaki's fever, and Urabe explains that his symptoms were the result of 'love sickness', and of withdrawal from not getting any more of her drool, the drool from the girl that is so mysterious to him. Tsubaki goes back to school the next day feeling completely rejuvenated, and is surprised to see Urabe waiting for him prior to his walk home. The purpose of this is to start their daily 'drool routine' of letting Tsubaki taste her drool. As Tsubaki starts to fall more and more in love with Urabe, he has another dream about dancing with Urabe on the roof of a hotel in the city, and he then decides to confess his love to her. Tsubaki asks Urabe to become his girlfriend, but she wants him to prove it to her in a way only he can, after a failed attempt at a first kiss. Tsubaki's way of 'making a move' on her is to show Urabe a picture of his old middle school crush Hayakawa Aika that he's kept in his wallet. Tsubaki explains that he's been unable to forget about Aika, that is, until he started spending time with Urabe. Tsubaki rips up the photo and declares that from now on Urabe is his girlfriend, which seems to greatly impress her. Urabe then explains the reason she laughed so loudly in class that one time was because a voice, or premonition told her that Tsubaki would be the first person she would have sex with. They both declare to each other that they are virgins, and Urabe is so happy that she appears to vomit. Now that Tsubaki has finally told her that he loves her, Urabe walks away, but then turns around and shouts that, as of today, she agrees to become his girlfriend. Commentary and Opinion * Urabe's panty scissors are only seen very briefly when Urabe does a twirl towards the end of the episode. * This episode is based entirely on what is now known as Chapter 0 of the manga. This is the original one shot published in 2004. * There are a few changes compared to Chapter 0 in the manga--- ** Chapter 0 in the manga is titled "Oneshot", instead of "Mysterious Girlfriend" in the anime. ** The symbolism involving the flower and butterfly is unique to the anime. ** So is most of the morning awakening, as the manga does not show Tsubaki waking up, eating breakfast, or going to school. ** When Urabe sits next to Tsubaki for the first time in the manga, his teacher needs to remind him to properly greet her and offer to show her around the school. In the anime he speaks directly to her, and is immediately kind to her. ** Tsubaki forgets his bag in the classroom; in the manga he forgets his lunch box ( his bento ). ** In the manga, when Tsubaki gets home after tasting Urabe's drool, we're introduced to his sister. In the anime, she was already introduced in this episode during breakfast, so the viewer instead sees Tsubaki lying in bed thinking about Urabe. ** In the manga, we see Urabe look for Tsubaki's house and convince his sister to let her in. In the anime, Urabe goes directly to Tsubaki's house. ** In the anime, Urabe asks Tsubaki if her drool tasted sweet, a concept explored only much later on in the manga. ** In the anime, the all important 'daily routine' name and concept that is the foundation of Urabe and Tsubaki's relationship is mentioned in this episode, but first talked about only later in the manga. ** In the manga, Urabe displays her skills with her panty scissors to Tsubaki before he confesses his love to her. In the anime, while we get a brief glimpse of them in this episode, holstered in her panties as her skirt is lifted up as she twirls around to face Tsubaki, her first use of them are actually in the next episode. ** Tsubaki doesn't use Urabe's scissors to cut up Aika's photo as he doesn't known about them in the anime yet. ** In the manga, Urabe only produces a massive amount of drool this one time when she's happy, while in the anime it happens again during the sports festival episode. Although while overcome with sickness in one chapter, she complains that Tsubaki has made her produce more drool than usual. ** In the manga, Urabe attempts to cut her own long, waist length hair, In the anime, Urabe's hair is the same short style, with bangs covering her eyes, as it was from Chapter 1 onward. Commentary and Opinion From---CuteButLooksLolita As Urabe and Tsubaki are first introduced to one another, and circumstances maneuver them into interpersonal exchanges between the two, both seem to have several premonitions, or foreshadowing of possible events or outcomes of what they are, or soon will be, experiencing. Below is a list of some of the premonitions that are presented about the two, and how that has affected them. ( Timing signposts are taken from the English Subtitled DVD version, and are approximate. ) TSUBAKI'S PREMONITIONS--- * In the anime, Tsubaki dreams about having sex relations for the first time, and just who that girl might be, and what will her personality be like ? The dream likens the sexual act to an insect gathering a flower's necture. This foreshadows that he will soon " taste " a girl's ( flower's ) necture. @ 00:00 - 00:45 * At breakfast, Tsubaki absentmindedly pours too much honey on his toast, and it spills onto the table. His action is remarkably similar to the spilling of necture in his dream. @ 00:57 - 01:10 * While Urabe is laughing uncontrollably in class ( and having her own premonition at that time ), Tsubaki gets the idea that she most definitely must be a " weirdo ". @ 04:51 - 04:58 * A major and very important premonition is given to Tsubaki when he awakens Urabe at her desk. She raises her head and her bangs part to show her full face and big eyes, and despite the fact that she is drooling ( Tsubaki has already seen his sister drooling ), he is taken aback by how cute she is. @ 05:37 - 06:00 * Another major premonition soon follows, a foreshadowing that is probably the kingpin of the entire series. As Tsubaki stares at the pool of Urabe's drool left on her desk after she leaves, his dream of tasting a flower's necture comes to him. He then dips his finger into her drool, and tastes it, remarking as to how sweet it is, sweet like honey. Then realizing the impact of the dream just now, and what he has just done, his eyes go wide, and he covers his mouth in shame. At this point in the story, due to what he just did, Tsubaki is probably already Drool Bonded to Urabe. @ 06:30 - 07:01 * In a dream that night, Tsubaki is being lead by the hand by a mysterious girlfriend, possibly against his will. They are running along a narrow elevated walkway between tall buildings in a bazaar, surreal, abstract inner city. Eventually, they find themselves on the rooftop of the Bad Cat Hotel, and they begin dancing together. They are wearing their school uniforms. Tsubaki discerns that the girl might be Urabe. @ 07:28 - 08:07 * Two previous premonitions are tied together by Urabe's comments to Tsubaki while he is recovering in bed at home. Urabe points out that tasting her drool ( her necture ), and seeing her cute face for the first time, both foreshadowed that he has, or soon will, invariably fall in love with her. @ 13:33 - 14:22 * In another dream of Urabe and Tsubaki dancing on the roof of a love hotel, it is predestined that they will become boyfriend and girlfriend. And by declaring to each other that they are both virgins, that predestines that they will be together in a most erotic and everlasting bond of love. @ 16:41 - 17:31 URABE'S PREMONITIONS--- * Urabe's first premonition, occurring like a voice inside her head, is also a major event in the series. During her first day at school as the new transfer student, she glances at Tusbaki, seated just across the aisle from her, and breaks out into loud, hysterical laughter. The teacher scolds her for interrupting the math class, but Urabe remarks that the source of the laughter is to personal to mention. Later, she does mention to Tsubaki what her premonition was about. It was the bold revelation that he will be the first boy to have sex with her. Her laughter may have come from disbelief. @ 04:00 - 04:49 * While the class is having PE on the track and field area of the school, Urabe has another premonition, that of the I-knew-this-would-happen variety. She sees Tsubaki collapse while running, and be carried off of the field. Later, he misses school because of illness and a high fever, and Urabe's supposition becomes even stronger, prompting her to consider attempting a drool bond. @ 08:25 - 08:49 * Another burst of hysterical laughter by Urabe while she is visiting a very sick Tsubaki, indicates that she now can comprehend her first premonition, and that premonition links to another one that she is receiving at the moment. The first one foreshadowed to her that Tsubaki would be her first sex partner, and this one is telling her, that because she now knows that Tsubaki can share a drool bond with her, that they are both destined to fall in love, become boyfriend and girlfriend, and eventually have a pure romantic, erotic, and implied sexual relationship, forever. @ 12:48 - 12:32 Category:Episodes